Be My Neighbour

I am not one who places adverts in the newspapers and in fact once in a while I have admonished people who have done so. But this week, I am close to doing so after my life turned into a mini-nightmare with the advent of a new neighbour.

First the good book tells us to love our neighbours. It would help if we knew what love really means! I don’t know about love; that is why I blog so much about it. It is also why so many musicians sing about it. In fact, Foreigner even went ahead and sang that craving we all have: I Want To Know What Love Is.

‘Love Is All Around’ replied Wet Wet Wet but they were wrong, wrong, wrong on account of my neighbours.

Even people in love don’t know what love is.

Many a time, when we have fallen ‘in love’ with someone we have tended to imagine that this is the best love we could ever feel. Thus statements like: No one, no one will ever make me feel like this. Then the “love” ends, and then someone else makes you feel like that again! Older geezers will tell you that therein lies the mystery of the definition of love.

So, hitherto I have said that no one would ever read KTN Prime News better than Kasavuli. Or that no woman would ever sing better than Whitney. Or no one would ever play football better than my Dad. Yet, years later there is now Lilian Muli, there is Britney and there is a Gerrard. What is even more, their names rhyme with Kasavuli, Whitney and Dad!

Before my tribulations began, I had this neighbour who had dashing looks and a body to kill for. Each morning, she would don some skimpy exercise suit and I would sip my breakfast as I watched her through the window going through her exercise routine. Whoever sang about ‘sometimes dancing can make you fall in love’, had clearly not seen my neighbour exercise.

She would then jog around the estate. She would look so perfect. And when you see someone from afar, that person is always so great. They seem so perfect since you don’t know them and thus you do not know their faults.

Once in a while, whilst I would be taking a shower, I would open the window and to my consternation, I would find the neighbor also taking a shower with her window open. Only when my water run dry, or when she wrapped her beautiful body in a towel would my shower end, whichever came first.

From that window view, all I saw was a fine, sweet, shapely, sensual, sexy body that seemed to inwardly shout: Make love to thy neighbour.

This seemingly blissful co-existence came to an abrupt halt when some chain smoking guy started appearing at her doorstep each Friday carrying a bag. I always assumed it was a lap top he had in there.

His presence in our court was just as reassuring as a grave digger paying a visit to the Old People’s Home.

Soon, I couldn’t sleep a wink due to some passionate noises emanating from my cute neighbour’s house. The sound she produced when they were fooling around could only be called a neigh. So finally I figured out the real meaning of the word ‘neighbour’!

I also figured out that the bag the dude carried was a Fornication Bag as he would not leave until Monday mornings. But oh what those moanings during the entire weekend did to my ears. Credit to this mystery man for turning my neighbor from a hot woman to a woman on heat!

Sometimes I wondered whether they did the ‘nice times’ next to an amplifier!

I bumped into mystery man one Monday morning as he left her house. He nodded his head at me as if to subtlety let me know he is really hitting that! I figured he would soon be texting her some short message to the effect: It was a joy just being the object of your loud screams.

It turns out the screams, nay, neighs, had been heard from as far as Lodwar as during the next neighbourhood meeting, the woman who lives in the next-next house said this noises had to be stopped. Without batting an eyelid, the hot-on-heat neighbor replied: Prease! Give me a bleak! You don’t hear me comprain about your brack cat –which is the rargest cat I have seen – miauwing the whole night. You radies just don’t rike me!

Fault number two. Her accent. I think she just killed it for me. There was an uproar and a few days later, she terminated her tenancy and moved houses.

I was hoping that I got an eye candy of a neighbour as a replacement. One who wouldn’t hang her teddy bear near my clothesline as the recent one used to do.

So when I opened the Nairobi Star and read about a man who had killed his wife, I mentioned it to the Chairman of our Estate that neighbours killing wives are not the neighbours you want to have around you.

The Chairman was amused. “What do you mean, man? The guy killed his wife; not his neighbour!”

I have never figured out how this heartless man whom I am told is a Doctor became our Chairman. During one meeting, some neighbour suggested that we place signs at our gates saying: ‘Slow Down! Children at Play!’ He simply retorted, ‘Why do you not let the brats play in the compound’

I wanted to blurt out a ‘Very well put Dr. Bullshit’ but, to my credit, I suppressed it.

He is also some form of tribal chauvinist. He went ahead and placed on our main gate, some sign whose meaning I am still yet to decipher!

The Movers turned into the Estate and with them brought the new tenant. I held my breath. I had to witness this because ‘so I am told’ is a dangerous source of news.

Out stepped a Plus Size Woman with a frown. Her elbow could take all of two rolls of tape measure. She slowly turned her gigantic head and gave each house a glance. I immediately rushed upstairs and shut the bathroom window, permanently, I believe!

I switched on my TV and gladly absorbed the vuvuzela noises from the Confederations Cup.

What a huge woman that was! I wouldn’t complain if she was a neigh-bour too. I wouldn’t cross the paths of any of her daughters, if she was capable of producing any.

My TV watching was interrupted when the door bell rang.

I stepped out of my comfort zone and opened the door only to be confronted by Plus Size Woman with a panga in her hands!

‘Hi,’ I cowered as she analyzed me from head to toe. ‘What can I do for you?’ I asked whilst silently praying that my breakfast would not take leave of my tummy.

‘Is it OK if I cut off some branches on that loquat tree?’, she asked as she pointed the panga at the tree.

She was swinging the panga rather dangerously. She had just moved in and the first thing she is thinking about is chopping off some branches from the only fruity tree I have encountered in recent years?

‘No’, I replied.

‘It is not OK?!’ she thundered with what must have been a trademark frown.

‘No’, I protested, ‘I meant I do not mind! It is OK!’

If you ask me, especially if you ask me without waving a panga in your hands, it is not OK! But at that moment, I was remembering that the previous week, my Medical Insurance had expired and the only medical cover I had at the time was Jesus.

‘Good!’ she said and moved her body mass out of range. 'That was a close shave Our Kid', I said to myself.

I miss my old neighbour! Even if she would have said this was the rargest woman she had ever seen! Even if she squeaked like a chew-toy! Even if her mystery man’s car-alarm used to go off at 3am in the middle of my sleep.

Seriously though, there’s a telly soap that has been running for years known as Neighbours. In it we are told, ‘Everybody needs good neighbours…’ I think the key word there is good. Not hot. Not on heat. And certainly not Panga Wielding but cake baking ones.

Next time, just let people apply for the position of neighbour.

Yes Oui Can

It was a looooooooooong weekend that necessitated some form of travel, especially with Nairobi not making any effort to retain its tag as the City in the Sun. I had rushed into plans to get away from Nairobi when work came a-calling and I had to slam the brakes on travel that Friday evening. Bah.

That left a Saturday morning that was going to be as easy as Sunday morning. But If I thought that meant I would have a peaceful time, it was only further proof that I was truly not blessed with the gift of clairvoyance. Because the words every man dreads to hear within a range of thirty metres ranges from the myriad of ‘I am pregnant’ to ‘We need to talk’ to ‘Let’s go to a wedding.’

Monica, the model who goes by the moniker Monique claiming she is a unique Monica, has somehow managed to make me look quite like the modelizer. She barged into the bedroom at the same instant that I opened my eye lids for the first time since I went to bed. I never even gave her the key to the house, she just cut herself one!

‘Hey you!’ she purred.

Oh boy. I am not a 'conditioned to love' guy. I am not a morning person. I am not used to this invasion that has taken great proportions. She threw out all my coat hangers saying those things lead to creased trousers! She bought a pair of scissors for my kitchen so I could stop ripping milk packets with fingers (a man has got to exercise!). She fixed some mosquito net with a zip on all the beds in the house! She even replaced my WELCOME mat with some mat that has a hidden weighing scale. I haven’t seen anyone so obsessed with her weight. Her e-mail address has her weight at the end of her name so each day she writes to me using the address that has her weight for that day. Talk about weighting to exhale!

‘Hey Stranger,’ I said.

‘Guess what? I made you some breakfast...,’ she started and broke into one of those Julia Roberts’ smiles. You know the one of wide smiles that you can’t get mad at. That is how I let that ‘key issue’ go without any challenge.

Speaking of Julia Roberts, a good gal pal of mine Julia Mwangi recently got married to a dude called Robert Mwangi and was not happy that her name changed from Miss Julia Mwangi to Mrs. Julia Mwangi.

So she opted to call herself... wait for it… Julia Robert.

On account of recent rains, she left her umbrella in my office. A work colleague saw it and with an intention to use it asked me: Whose umbrella is this?

“Julia Robert’s”, I replied.

My colleagues may feel that I have been canoodling too much with celebrities that it is getting into my head!

‘Breakfast.. you say?’

‘You’ll lov it!’ Monique replies and without any bother in the world kisses me smack on the lips. I like this girl. Not just because she looks hot but there is something about her. She tries to be different. She tells me she doesn’t care if I cheat on her because according to her faithfulness isn’t the strongest point of a relationship. Yes, she actually said that! But can she avoid the ‘knifeinthebackability’ of most women? And she really hates football! Which quality I also like because I steer clear of women who know the ‘offside rule’. A man needs once in while to talk about something a woman doesn’t understand!

‘Hmmmmmm,’ I mutter jumping out of bed and following her. When walking behind her, the girl is like a walking advert for the adjectives ‘rhythm’ and ‘lustrous’.

As we settle down, she smiles at me. She must want something. This time, my instinct is right.

‘By the way,’ she starts in a not very by-the-way sort of speech, ‘I need you to check for me if I can have the Cuchini clause inserted in my contract!’

‘The coochie what?!?’ I almost choke on the bacon.

‘The Cuchini,’ she says. ‘You know that thingy that you put in bikinis to avoid those cameltoes. Am doing a beach shoot next week!’

Why would anybody invent something like that? If there is any justice in the world, and if that justice had a good pair of eyes, the inventor should be locked up. Or made target practice for Cholmondoley. I mean, from now on, no buying those magazines again. For the love of Our Kid, can somebody correct this terrible wrong! Grrrrrrrr!

‘Can we go to a wedding?’ she suddenly asks.

Now, I may like our cousin Obama like the next guy, but I haven’t gotten to level of replying ‘Yes We Can’ when such questions are posted my way.

‘This afternoon?’ I repeat as my mind goes over the FA Cup Final scheduled for that afternoon. ‘Am not feeling too good’.

She looks at me and touches my beard.

‘Poor Kid,’ she offers. ‘I tell you what, am going to take great care of you today!’

And take good care of me she did. She said she was going to bake me a cake. Sweet dreams are made of this… and who are you to disagree? She got me the newspapers and I read about our Sports Minister proposing that the national heritage be renamed Conya Yola Stadium or something like that! I read about the Ugandan President saying Migingo Islands should be declared no-mans land. Knowing our politicians, I hope they haven’t accused Norman Nyaga of working in cahoots with Museveni.

Things seem to be going relatively well. That is until former Man U boy Louis Saha scored after 25 seconds and I screamed loudly.

‘What is wrong?’ the concerned sweet-sounding voice from the sweet-smelling kitchen asked.

‘Wrong?’ I say. ‘Nothing. Everton scored a goal’.

‘Wait a minute!’ she said. ‘This is why you didn’t want to go to the wedding? I cannot believe this. You chose football and let me miss the wedding thinking I was taking care of an invalid?’

I said I was ill. Not had cancer!

Doors were slammed and heels were seen. When I went to the kitchen, that cake was just like an 8-4-4 graduate. Half baked.

Women! At least she should have waited until the cake was fully served! Surely she should consider introducing her sense of humour at some stage in this relationship. Why else would she postal just because I wanted us to spend quality time together (granted that this was in separate rooms, her in the kitchen and I on the couch with crisps, chocolate and beer). Maybe she stormed out under the influence of Alvaro.

I finish the match and throw on some clad and go looking for her at the wedding reception. How come all the weddings I know about are on Saturdays when there is usually a football match? Dayum.

I looked around the reception ground and she was nowhere to be seen. Well, if you wait, good things come your way and that is exactly what happened when some girl else said ‘Hi’. I turned to look at her, wine glass in her hand!

‘Hi,’ I said. ‘Friend of the bride or the groom?’ I also asked.

She chuckled. ‘Neither,’ she replied ‘I am just here for the wine! I love French wine. This…’ her fingers tapped the glass, ‘…is the finest!’

There is something titillating about looking at a woman’s lips as she puts them on a spherical object. She took another sip from the glass.

‘Pardon my French, senorita,’ I found myself stating, ‘but you are ffffffffff… fine!’

‘That’s not French!’ she laughed.

‘How would you know?’

‘I teach French,’ she said.

Just the mention of this set my blood running at a quicker pace. I don’t know if it was the wine talking, but she could really keep up with the words. I was a bit angry with Monique and didn’t mind listening to this French teacher go on and on and on. She talked about her former boyfriend.

‘He literally broke my heart!’ she said. Lordy! Literally? Thank heavens she doesn’t teach English. She grammatically breaks my heart!

But those lips.

‘Could you teach me anything French?’ I asked her.

‘Like what?’ she asked.

‘Like French kissing,’ I said. What? I hadn’t done sweet FA all day long! So do not begrudge me.

‘I have a better idea,’ she said. ‘Are you familiar with the term Sleeping Dictionary?’ she asked.

I shook my head.

‘You know. The best place to learn a language is in bed. Don’t you know that is how those colonialists learnt local languages! So we can go to your place or my place and I will teach you some French kissing and teach you all the French words for our body parts – with practical examples.’

I hate love weddings! And I wouldn’t mind if she literally broke any of my body parts!

So she went to the Ladies before we could leave and it was at that moment that Monique walked into the Reception Room.

I love hate weddings! She had already seen me and was flashing that Julia Roberts’ smile as she approached me. Moments like this call for either a Damn Quick Exit or a meteorite to hit Nairobi.

The French teacher tapped me on the shoulder, ‘We can go now handsome!’

Let me just say I didn’t learn any French that evening. Monique is still upset with me. This small misunderstanding is really getting on my nerves. First she says ‘cheating’ is fine. Then she says I ‘cheated’ when in actual sense ‘I had the thoughts’ but not ‘the action’. Those are the two ingredients of cheating. Not her cloying definition. I think we should just make a dictionary of words and their meanings depending on who does something. We can call it the Dictionary of the Hypocrisy of Women.

What a loooooooooooooong weekend it turned out to be!

Snacks On A Plane

“You choose the locomotion that you want!” my boss bellowed as she waved me away and took an incoming call.

I choose the locomotion I want? Oh come on. You are talking to a guy who doesn’t even make up his mind whether he needs to take the opaque lift, steep stairs or moving staircase when he is shopping at Nakumatt Lifestyle. The other day I even wondered loudly to a shop attendant why she couldn’t carry me upstairs in her arms.

The boss was still on phone. Clipperty clapperty, laugh, clop… then she adds the word REALLY (which she pronounces ree-ally?) and she goes on with the clipperty clapperty, laugh, clop…

It all happened when we got a call from our Mombasa client that KRA had detained some goods at the port and were now asking for a tax that was greater than the value of the same goods. Now, I didn’t pay attention during all those Economics classes due to the distraction of having a teacher with decent looks and a sizeable, you know.

You don’t? Well, Diabs (for that was what we called our teacher who would surely merit a Facebook Group now) would always awaken me from my fantasies with ‘You there, behind!’

‘Behind?’ I would repeat in all innocence triggering a heavy bout of laughter from my co-students. But now you know. So she would ask about all these crazy three letter abbreviations. Like asking me what ERP stood for. Sijui it used to be Enterprise Resource Planning or sumn. There was also EPS for Earnings Per Share. As far as I knew it then I had a terrible affliction of EPA. Error Prone Abbreviations. Yet all I ever saw in that class was her VPL.

That was then. The now was still ‘clipperty clapperty, laugh, clop..’ as my boss went on with her phone call. Truly, you can tell a man by the company he keeps works for. Michael Jackson may have been right when he sang about bosses. They Don’t Care About Us.

The rules of the Firm were clear. If an employee needed to travel to Mombasa, they would, if traveling at night take the bus and if they were travelling during the day, go by air. But when I told her that I wanted to go with a personal car, a day in advance, she was acting up. You would think by locomotion she meant even a bicycle or mkokoteni. Maybe the correct MJ song is Bad.

I don’t mind matatus. They aren’t really all Nissans but Kenyans are incorrigible. The last time I travelled in one called a ‘shuttle’ to Eldoret, I was taken aback when –Houston we have a problem - the old lady next to me launched herself into a prayer before the journey seeking to quote her ‘journey mercies’. I wouldn’t have minded being sat between two gorgeous girls called Mercy too! So I asked the good lady whether she always prayed before all journeys.

‘Mimi huwa naomba tu kwa-Nissan,’ she replied.

‘Mimi huwa naomba tu kanisani,’ I told her. But if travelling in this mode meant I was assailed by religious conversations, I quickly struck it out. I enjoy journeys where there is a great chance of engaging in the Lips Olympics.

I don’t mind air travel. No. In fact, the stewardesses are often all pretty. In an era of ageism and sexism lawsuits, I am waiting for an airline to be sued for uglism.

For some of us, the only chance we get to lift off the ground (with the added benefits of turbulence is when they get into a lift). Speaking of lifts, it is an open secret that I would rather be stuck in a lift with Penninah Karibe than with a lift engineer.

The last time I took to the skies on my way to Jo’burg, I was horrified by the pronunciation of the South African Airways crew. Having settled in, I asked the guy what he was going to serve. ‘We will serve you some snakes!’

My eyes went bulgy as I scanned around for Samuel Jackson but I still managed to put in two words of shock: ‘Some what?’

‘Snakes, sir!’ he said.

‘What kind of snakes?’ I posed whilst holding my bladder tight.

‘We have all sorts of snakes…’

Turns out, the mispronouncing crew was talking about snacks! Ree-ally!

When the phone finally came down (and I suppose this was only after my boss hit her word limit for the day) she indicated firmly that I had to go by air. The way she said it, you would have thought she said I had to vanish into thin air. And so my date with KRA was made. Short of becoming Saddam Hussein’s defence lawyer (as you recall, the militants shot his lawyers and not the prosecutors) dealing with KRA is often one of the most difficult assignments I have taken.

I may love Divorce Law but this was one of those times I said to myself, “Self, why not take this job as a challenge that gets you some quid and a stroll on the beach?” My self agreed!

At the Airport, I bump into Simon. Simon Wakson. A former classmate back in High. The last I heard of this guy he was selling his kidney to raise school fees. He seemed to have aged faster than normal!

Here he was at the airport with maybe one kidney, and walking in crutches. I knew the guy had a weakness for telling lies and I waited for a spin greater than he was about to marry Karibe. “I had my third knee operation,” he said pointing at the crutches. You see? Who has ever heard of a person with one kidney and three knees?

Turns out he was waiting for benefactors from Europe. If Simon had that modicum of business and common sense, he would have undergone plastic surgery to turn him to General Mathenge and get feted instead of that Ethiopian farmer. Mark you, it wouldn’t have been a lot of surgery.

“I wonder if you can lend me a little money? Say a hundred thao?” he asked.

You know Wakson is the kind of guy you may lend money then he repays you with an envelop dripping blood and when you open it, it’s a kidney!

This selling my kidney business came about because Simon in his wisdom or lack of it thought he was a pauper. However when we were in First Form, our teacher of English (who hated to be called our ‘English teacher’ and once asked us to give him twelve meanings of the sentence: The police were ordered to stop drinking at midnight) asked us to write an essay on ‘My Life As A Pauper’. Predictably, Simon wrote an amusing essay about how he had been planted and we were puzzled until we saw his essay was titled ‘My Life As A Pawpaw’. Maybe he should have spared his kidney and sold his faulty ears!

Cometh the hour, cometh the woman! So I was saved from Simon selling me kidney stones for a hundred grand when the soothing voice came over the loudspeaker that we were ready to board. And I dashed off like a surgeon.

On our descent, the cabin crew got us off to an alarm with the announcement: Karibu kwa uwanja wa ndege wa Entebbe. I get thinking: ‘WTF? Did Yoweri Museveni kidnap us? Did he say we were in land belonging to Kenya and air belonging to Uganda? Then a correction follows a few seconds after. Samahani. Karibu kwenye Uwanja wa Kimataifa wa Moi, Nairobi. Samahani. Karibu kwenye Moi Airport Mombasa.

In those three seconds we were in Entebbe, Nairobi and finally Mombasa. “I am speechless!” I heard the chap seated next to me say. Yeah, right. If he was ‘speechless’, then how come I was able to hear him as he said he was speechless?

You know since the alerts on terror got us into all this panic, you are not allowed to carry most hand luggage like lotion and powdered milk but it would really help if KQ allowed its crew to carry some maps!

Anyway to give Caesar – or Naikuni - his dues the flight had been a great one.

The Coasterians were friendly as usual. The cab guy said ‘Karibu’ though frankly, I was absent minded and begged his pardon with a ’Scuse me, Karibe?’ The hotel porter said it too. Karibu, that is. I found an envelop on my bed that was addressed to me! It also said in about twenty lines: Karibu.

I also saw the lines: It is safe to leave your door unlocked. I looked around the cute room. What was there to steal other than my heart? For starters, the plasma TV. NTV turned me on, or truthfully, I turned on NTV. And I saw, oh well... I saw her. Karibe that is. She was announcing some news about some tourists who were visiting the country and they showed a clip of some frail women with … Simon! Great snakes!

Here is hoping I have a KRA - and Simon - free time. I wouldn't worry about Simon... he probably sold his heart this time!

Moment of Truth

Those who don’t think my blog is brilliant, in your face! Because duly tagged by Darius Stone, KK, Pink M, Mama Maisha and Mboiz it is now my single duty (after the stipulated mandatory bragging) to step into this reality show we all love to hate. Yes, this is my moment of truth.

First the rules. Sod the rules. Do I swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing about Ruth, so help me Gawd? Yes. So here go the ten questions posed to me.

Tell us about one annoying habit you have.

I like having the last word in each and every conversation. This morning I went up to get my daily newspaper and met the vendor clad in some horrific vest with a Standard newspaper completing the regalia on his chest.

“Habari ya Leo?” the fellow said as I handed over funds for the purchase. So I tell him “Najuaje Habari ya Leo na bado sijasoma gazeti?” Big mistake. “Hapana” he corrects me “Gazeti huwa na habari ya jana”. So I pick up my newspaper and tell him, “Basi ukitaka kujua Habari ya Leo, si usome gazeti ya kesho!” and I leave.

Tell us about your house.

I am so into branding that my humble abode has labels on each door inspired by the NBA marketing. My kitchen has the label ‘Where experiments happen’ whilst the small gym has ‘Where Fear Factor happens’. The johns obviously have the slogan ‘Where shit happens’. My bedroom has ‘Where amazing happens’. I am hoping to buy one of those neon signs near the bed so that everytime I come, a flicker tape ‘Amazing Just Happened’ can light up.

Do you love politics?

Are you kidding me? Politics in Kenya sucks and the worst bit about it is that a majority of Kenyans spent all the time talking about politicians. I no longer follow the Prime News since at my regular swallow, everybody has an account and some opinion about politics. The other day, some man vilified by the media after saying that MPs who paid taxes when the law did not obligate them so to do were ‘sufficient philanthropists’ turned into a media darling when he declared himself the Chair of the House Business Comedy.

“The Speaker is a brave and decisive man!?” the unsolicited view came from the man popping a Pilsner. So I ask him “Oh really?” Hoping that his political scientism will shine through, he goes on about how the Speaker had taken the bull by its horns. ‘He acted like Solomon’ he goes on. I wince. So I politely tell him “If the Speaker had balls, he would be called Makende not Marende!”

Frankly, if the Speaker is the new Solomon and Kalonzo is the new Iscariot and Karua the new Mary Magdalene and Saitoti the new Herod, I am the new Doubting Thomas!

So you hate politics, but if you were a politician, what would be your slogan?

Like I said, politics is overrated. I would want to say ‘GOT BRAINS?’ much like the Got Milk campaign but that will scuttle my efforts. If any politician had a slogan with the words CHANGE they are bound to attract voters like a moat to a flame. Obama wowed with his CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN whilst during the controversial 2007 elections, Raila tried REAL CHANGE and even good old Kibaki came up with CHANGE THAT YOU CAN SEE. I think my slogan would be CHANGE OF MUSICAL CHAIRS. I am sure so many people will still vote for me!

You sound like the whining type! Are you the whining type?

Most of my friends say I am! I complain about everything! For instance, some models have been spending some time at my house. So I was recently complaining to my buddies that these models are so annoying. ‘They so lack self consciousness. The other day I met one on the stairs wearing nothing but slippers and a shower cap. She was dripping wet. She had just come from the shower and had forgotten to carry a towel to the bathroom.’

I am so sick and tired of all this. I mean, why can’t they just wear clothes like normal people? For some reason, I find women more attractive when they are clothed.

These models, what are they doing at your house?

One of them is my current Significant Other. I was at a coffee place one day flirting with the waitress when she just walked in with this prettiest face and loveliest hair. As she passed my table, I waved away the waitress and watched her walk past. She looked around the tables and as she passed by again, I stood and just said ‘Excuse me. Allow me to say this. You have a nice ass!’ She didn’t slap me. Instead she just smiles and says ‘You want to tap it?’ I liked her even more! ‘No.’ I said ‘I want to represent it!’

The guy she was meeting was late so she gave me an ear. ‘Let me hear this’ she said. She was and still is a professional model though she insists she is a model professional. That is how I became her new agent and since then she has bagged a few lucrative endorsements and adverts. But now she has all these model girlfriends coming over to my house. I know, Spice Girls sang that ‘If you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends’ but any men who have followed that advice have usually found that they are downgraded from lover status.

On Labour Day, I am watching the Atwoli Show on TV when one of the models comes over and sits on my laps. ‘I hope you don’t mind if I sit on his laps,’ she tells her friend who says she doesn’t mind and gives me one of those killer smiles.

Poor guy. Tell us something embarrassing, please.

Let me see. Oh yeah. I have no idea how to ride a bicycle! I look at all these kids with envy when they ride in the estate and I wish I could go back to my childhood and learn how to do it. I gave up riding bicycles when as youngster I dislocated my shoulder after falling off one of those two wheelers. People say having sex is much like riding a bicycle. And this is true since I also once dislocated my shoulder when trying out a certain position during nookie.

Some people would consider you mad. Have you ever been certified?

I think seeing shrinks is an absolute waster of beer money. But I have seen a shrink and even she has said I am a normal person. I went to see the shrink because I have a fear of pregnant women. Just freaks me out when I see any. So there I was lying on the couch and she made me narrate stories about my childhood. I happened to mention that when I was young, I lived in the staff houses of a hospital where my mum worked at. I would occasionally sneak to the window of the labour ward and watch the screaming women as they gave birth to life. What a lesson on expansion! Back then, doctors wouldn’t scribble CS on pregnant women’s bellies and even if they did it meant Cash Strapped not Caesarean Section. I almost became a Catholic Priest because of this fear. My shrink calls it tacophobia but for a guy who loves butt, that sounds almost unbelievable.

What makes you happy?

I don’t like being happy because when you are sad, the only thing you can become is happy but when you are happy you are likely to become sad later. However, a good football match can make me happy. As far as I am concerned, there are two types of men. Those who play football and those who watch it. I am in the latter category. I am a qualified FIFA referee too though I haven’t had a run around on the football pitch in recent years due to my ageing process. People think I became a referee so that I could watch football from up-close. It isn’t true. When you are on the pitch, football players talk a lot and I think this is wrong. Football was intended to be enjoyed just like sex. In silence.

Which is why football commentators are such a kill joy to me. On Saturday evening I was smashing back some wines, bottle after bottle, whilst enjoying El Classico between Real Madrid and Barcelona when two of the models lying with me on the couch started asking me whether football is better than sex (their friend was catching beauty sleep!) It is funny they didn’t understand the rule about silence. But if anyone walked in on us, they would have thought we were a noisy threesome. Noisy threesome? Funny, that is what you get when you rearrange Eto’o, Henry and Messi.

This is the tenth question. Any thing you left out?

No. As it is I am extremely embarrassed by this post that makes me too stupid! At least I didn’t talk about Ruth. Or the fact that I have never had a Safaricom line. Or the fact that I was once conned into buying a product called Bullshit Repellant. Or that I honestly find most pets incredible, with emphasis on the last six letters of the word.

For more honest crap, join us soon for another episode of Moment of Truth featuring in the hot seat any of the following:-

Loco, Shiko-Msa, GITM, Sketchitect, The Campus Girl, Ngares and Ingwe Fan.

Sex And The Village

Everybody has a special place of disguised blessings, unforgettable romances, weary trials and precious memories. For me, that happens to be the village. And that is where I went to pitch last weekend after it occurred to me that the Mayor of Nairobi doesn’t even know my name!

I ran into Wangila just as I made the turning into a pool of stagnant water right in the smack of the road. The thing about the village is that everybody’s name has a meaning. Wangila for instance means one who was conceived by the roadside. That might explain this dent on the road that was now full of water.

‘Kiddo!’ he shouted. ‘Long time, bwana! You vanished like a car with Track-It’

I rolled down the window. I had to talk to him. What if my car got stuck in the mini-pool? There were two nick names for Wangila: Joe Black and Gish. The former for his Sudanese like skin and the latter merely a pet name.

‘Gish! You aren’t looking too bad,’ I fibbed. With good reason. Courtesy of my memory bank, peeps always wore their best threads only on Sunday, so the tattered clad could be excused.

‘It is because I have three!’ he replied with a hearty laughter.

‘Three kids?’

Another laughter as he gripped my hand and pinched my cheek. ‘You are still a funny man! Three kids! He he. Three wives man.’

Wangila is 30. That makes it one wife for each decade he has lived. I am with Hillary on this. It really takes a village!

Later that evening two things occurred to me. All the three were pregnant at the same time. Knowing that Wangila was very vocal in his support for PNU during the last election, this was proof once again that kazi inaendelea!

The other thing that occurred to me was that his third wife was Jackie, a girl I had been quite fond off. She had made the words ‘I forgot’ very famous when back in the days, I was schooling in an all girls school in this village. My parents had been requested by the Headmistress of the all girls school to allow me learn in the all girls school so that the grades of the school could improve. Being the only boy in a class of eighty girls was something I could deal with.

But Truphena Hill, our class teacher, seemed to forget my gender and would ask all the girls each morning to lift up their skirts so she could check who wasn’t wearing panties. Two whole minutes of bliss! Jackie was always caught having gone commando and would then utter the words ‘I forgot’.

I bought her a pair as a birthday present when we were in our teenhood. It was more a joke than intent. But we were close that she even once whispered in my ear: ‘Am not wearing any’ after I had slipped a note to her in church with the words: Gravity. It makes panties fall off.

She also disliked Wangila. And now she was married to him! He insisted we had to go cut a drink at a pub. If you want beer in the village, you needn’t go far. There is a pub called Simbi Bar. Simbi means near.

On our way, we met the local tailor who insisted I should order a suit from him. He is so accurate in cutting up pieces of cloth, that he doubles up as the village circumciser.

‘Hey, isn’t that the dude who owns the Bata franchise shop?’ I asked Wangila as I saw someone in a corner drinking in solitude.

Wangila raised his eyebrow and nodded as if we were in Code Speak.

‘See that bandaged hand? He was caught with someone’s wife in bed. The man had been tipped about the wife’s infidelity and laid a trap for him. When they were in the act, the husband stormed in with a supporting cast!’

This wasn’t good.

‘He was stark naked. He was given two choices. Do we chop off your manhood or do we chop off your finger?’

‘No!’ I said.

‘Yes!’ he replied. ‘He chose the finger!’

‘I wonder why?’ I mused. Sipped my beer. ‘Perhaps he was only fingering her’.

‘Love rectangle, my friend from the Big City,’ Wangila said after his laughter diminished.

Perhaps this was why Wangila made the decision to have his rectangle in marital bliss. I also learnt that Wangila wasn’t formally working. No, no, he hadn’t turned from ‘Joe Black’ to ‘Joe Bless’. He provides bicycle transport popularly known as boda boda. From what I hear, it leads to quick impotence. Small price to pay for having three wives.





‘So Gish. Three wives all pregnant at once. Isn’t that illogical?’ I asked. I mean the dimwit in me would imagine that spacing out pregnancies ensures you are sexually active through out the year. Isn’t that a simple obviousism?

‘Cost sharing my friend’, he says, but am still not convinced about this nappy sharing. And the three are all due in December. ‘No Maternity Ward and all that modern jazz. After all I was born by the roadside. My second wife is a midwife.’

Oh. So his name means ‘born’ not ‘conceived’. I am thoroughly ashamed at my thoughts. Considering I resist asking ‘Your last wife. Does she wear panties?!’

He is actually thinking cost. Hmm. They say 2007 was a horrible year for the Prime Minister’s or ‘annus horribilis’. If those three wives each give birth to triplets, Wangila will close an annus as horribilis as the Prime Minister’s.

We pub crawl to another bar called Pewama Bar. My mind is thinking ‘pewa’ is Swahili but it’s is only called this because the owner is called Petro Wafula Masika. If Gavin Joseph Bell knew about this, Kengeles would be Gajobe rather than the translation. Same reason teacher Truphena refused to call herself Mrs. Sikulu (which means hill) when she got married and translated her name to Mrs. Hill.

At Pewama, we encounter a chap called, you know, Chap. He is a real dipsomaniac and is already singing. When he sees me, he lights up and adds an octave to his song. His expected reward was a beer but I demur.

‘Our Kid! Every day we have to be thankful. And today I am thankful that you will never be my MP. You are so mean!!!’

Wangila isn’t happy and he swings his glass at Chap. Beer splashes over Chap. Chap leaves. I am informed that he has two wives. But that they were both playing him. They would pretend to go to the posho mill but instead end up in some dingy lodgings with their men.

Recently, one of those men was stood up and he rode his motor bike to Chap’s home. He met Chap and presuming that Chap was a hired help, he asked him if he could go and call the woman he was interested in.

‘That is crazy!’ I utter in utter shock. ‘So what did Chap do?’

Wangila looks at me and says. ‘Get me another beer!’

Turns out Chap went to get a machete instead; the philanderer narrowly cheated death as Chap wasn’t the best shot in the village; and the motor bike zoomed off.

From a distance, I see a fine woman approach.

‘Who is that?’ I ask.

‘Wait. Let her pass by first,’ Wangila answers. ‘I can never tell a woman from her front.’

And that is not said under the influence.

‘That is Kisima’, he continues. I open my arms to gesticulate a request for explanation and he informs me that she was called that because she is the first woman in the village to fornicate in church.

‘Fornicate in church?’ I whistle.

‘Yes’, he replies. ‘She kissed the groom. In front of her parents! And her in laws. On her wedding day.’

Scandalous. Just like me who went straight from a High School to a Law School, she must have gone straight from an in law to an outlaw. Kisima means well. Why is she called Kisima, you ask. Her husband reported that she wasn’t a virgin on the wedding night and people immediately coined her nickname. Well well well.

I would have thought Kisima is a corruption of ‘Kiss me.’ The church had since banned the ‘You may kiss the bride’ line from its weddings.

I look closely at Kisima. I remember her! She once went out with an altar boy who served Mass with me. He was the crooked type. He once drank half the church wine and filled the bottle with water. In Biblical terms, it was equivalent to the turning of wine into water!

We call for our bill. I am jolted when the barmaid comes over and Wangila slips his hands under her skirt. She doesn’t offer any protest. I have seen enough. He has three pregnant wives and he is feeling a barmaid?

It is time to leave and I give Wangila a ride. He often takes people for a ride but I reckon he needs the break tonight. After all he is staggering. When we get to one of his houses, he is asleep. I knock and Jackie opens the door.

‘I forgot’, I begin and pause and we both laugh, ‘to bring him home earlier’.

‘It’s okay Kid. They say better late than…’ she also pauses and points at her belly ‘… pregnant.’

‘I always thought you will marry a Scotsman,’ I say and she laughs.

Wangila slumps on the couch.

‘I wish I had,’ she says. There is a tinge of regret in her voice. ‘I wish I had,’ she repeats herself in a whisper as she looks at Wangila. His snore is loud.

‘Good night,’ I say and start to leave.

‘Good night?’ she asks. ‘I haven’t had any good night since…’

‘Since?’

‘Good night’ she replies and smiles. ‘Good night Our Kid,’ she adds and closes the door.

Grown Ups

‘Lilian Muli loves wearing black underwear!’ Austin said matter-of-factly sparking a bout of oh dearism from yours truly.

I have taken up baby-sitting duties the past few days and I am really feeling like the new Kofi Annan to Kenya. But the coffee-spluttering moment above came when Austin, my eight year old nephew, uttered that sentence.

One thing is clear. They don’t make them like they used to anymore. No. Not black underwear. I am talking about babies. I honestly think the babies of old were mostly born out of missionary positions but chances are that modern ones aren’t too sure whether their parents stayed conventional or were a bit dodgy.

I am excluding of course test tube babies who being hand made tend to take the fun out of this serious business. Despite having a womb with a view.

The moans and groans that come from baby making and the resultant joy when kids later just don’t shut up, is an apt transition from noisy love to lovely noise.

Yes, things have changed. Parents now update their Facebook status even when they are making babies. So “…is cuuuuuuuuuming!!!” has cunningly popped up once in a while as parental graffiti on walls. And once babies are made, they are for life!

I am sadly stuck with Austin for life! He didn’t have to do a lot of pleading for me to attend his school’s closing day last week.

‘Uncle, some of my classmates have hot mums. What’s it you called it some time back when talking on the phone? MILF!’ he said. Note to self: Watch what you whisper when Austin is within a radius of a kilometer.

So I trudged along with Austin to the Closing Day of his school last week and was immediately horrified at the babyish antics of some parents.

I sat with Austin, not quite deliberately, behind a lady whose flowery thong was on display and my whole body voted: Eye!

The candy-ness of the eye disappeared when the lady stood up to complain at the impromptu PTA meeting that her daughter’s rubber had been stolen during the course of the school term. I couldn’t resist and tapped her lightly. ‘Isn’t she a bit young?’ I asked her. Turns out, she meant ‘eraser’.

The buffoonery continued when another parent gave unsolicited advice to the school to buy sandals to use them to discipline errant children since she also uses sandals to discipline her children at home. I know caning was banned but surely the remedy isn’t renaming it ‘sandaling’.

Frankly, if my late Dad, an avid disciplinarian walked into any classroom in this No Caning age, he would certainly glue misbehaving pupils together. After all, don’t they say that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em?

What will be next? Parents demanding detention as punishment? Look what it did to the Prime Minister, the man who makes people say that the only ship to dock in Kisumu City is the Premiership.

The Top Three pupils were called to receive their presents and they were each asked what they wanted to be when they grew up.

‘I want to be a matatu driver!’ the top student in Class One stated. Clearly to disobey traffic rules and dodge potholes is now considered artful. Perhaps an audition for Formula One.

The top student in Class Two said she wants to be a VJ. I blinked. VJ? I have avoided using short forms since I was dumped by some girl I had sent a text with the message: Enjoy your VD. I really meant Valentines Day! How was I to have known that some people’s thoughts are venerably diseased?

The teacher tries: ‘You mean CJ?’ The kid has none of it.

‘No, VJ, a video jockey. It’s like a DJ, only with video’, she says.

And oh yes. A parent somewhere is nodding his head as he thinks about what has recently happened in Madagascar!

My Dad wasn’t that easy to fool. When I was growing up, Yvonne Chaka Chaka (amongst the few artistes that are so good they were named twice) sang ‘Am In Love With a DJ’ I also thought I would become a DJ. And when she sang ‘I’m Burning Up’ I thought I would be a fireman. When she sang ‘Caught Breaking The Law’ I settled on being a lawyer. Sometimes I shudder if she had sang about ‘Casanova’ like Pat Shange. I would have become a porn star.

That aside, Austin was the best in Class Three. I walk with him to the front of the assembly for him to receive the prize. And he is asked the dreaded question: What do you want to be when you grow up?

‘I want to be a player!’, he declares triggering a gasp of Pat Shange proportions from some parents.

A player? My mind races to the Lillian Muli incident. When he talked about her underwear, I had quickly rewound the PVR, to see if whilst reading the News, she had uncrossed her legs. Austin had simply burst out laughing at my action. ‘Don’t bother with that! I read it in Pulse!’ he said and showed me an old edition of 21^st September 2007. For a moment, I had thought of asking him what colour Penina Karibe wears! That got my pulse racing.

‘A player?’ the Catholic Priest dishing out the prizes repeats whilst looking at me disapprovingly. I resist the urge to say I am just the Uncle.

‘Yes, a football player,’ Austin says to my relief.

Then whilst holding on to the microphone, he adds, ‘Dennis Oliech makes more money than my lawyer Uncle here, right? He has a Chrysler, right? And he pulled Lilian Muli, right?’

I snatch the microphone and I pull him away. What is with this boy and Lilian Muli? She is getting married, hello!

Football is just an excuse for ugly men to date beautiful women. And I believe that Austin knows that. Austin is precocious and sometimes doesn't mask his innocence. I am sick of his embarrassments. He even asked some grieving widow who said in an eulogy that her doctor husband had fought the good fight whether he had actually been working in the General Service Unit. GSU, now that is a career I would like Austin to end in.

I notice that the top boys in latter classes have serious ambitions. One wants to be an astronaut. Seriously! That boy just threw away his chance of getting a TV girl pronounce his name except on a news item.

Another top girl says she wants to be a nurse. Now that one just threw away a chance for latter day Austin’s to get interested in what colour of panties she wears. For nursing doesn’t get you in Pulse. You know, if Satan did not exist, it would still have been necessary for Christians to create him. If celebs in Kenya did not exist, it was necessary for Pulse to create them!

Black underwear? Question is: What do I want to become when I grow hard?

Men... Manly Men!

Lesson. ‘Men’ is really not a generic word. Because men are not the same. Men are different. Yes. Some men may pay the rent, but some just defer. Equally, some men are indifferent.

So every time I hear women (oh, these ones are all the same!) complain that they do not understand men, I chuckle. It is like saying, ‘I don’t understand animals’. You see, all are different.

So Man A is different from Man B and Man D may actually love Man U more than you! Yes, different. Just the way fingerprints are never the same (and if you checked some women’s bodies carefully, boy, will you see a man’s fingerprints all over them)!

Women are the same since they all like to order expensive wine and also like to whine. And they all sing ‘You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman’ when they are buying sanitary pads.

Some men have beards whilst some have faces as smooth as a new born baby’s behind. Some men love women’s behinds whilst others say they think the breasts are the reason they fall in love.

When we speak of love, some men are clueless. Some men are hopeless romantics whilst others are well… hopeless. If you told some men that you love them, we may need a search party and a Commission of Inquiry to establish their whereabouts moments after those words escape from your lips.

Some men use their lips to kiss. Others use them to lie.

Some men know that when you lie with a woman, you need staying power. Some merit a mention in the lyrics of the Alanis Morissete hit ‘Ironic’ as they would be watching soccer and claim they love extra-time when they suffer from pre-mature ejaculation.

Some men acknowledge that the last resurrection was Christ's whilst others are not in denial and pop Viagra once in a blue moon.

If you look closely, you will realize that some man came up with H20 Bling couture water. Yes. Whilst in rural and urban Kenya, some men go down on all fours to taste dirty waters, others do it differently and get the expensive kind. And advertisers know that some men are suckers and won't know the relation between water and nookie hence the sex-themed adverts targeting such men.

Some men dye their hair whilst others who appreciate that dying is the end of a normal process embrace their aging and don’t mind having wrinkles that look like the contours of the Rift Valley as seen from a Fly 540 that is experiencing turbulence.

Some men are knights in shining armour whilst some will give you a ngeta in the night even if you were in distress.

Some men are the biggest joke in the country. In a country that includes Dr. Alfred Mutua that says a lot about such men. Every woman has once encountered such jokes when they are begging to be taken back after reaching ‘Amazing Grace’ levels. By which I mean, when they are saying ‘Was blind but now I see!’ If only women wouldn’t splash hot water in their eyes after they admit that. But you see, women are all the same!

I disagree with the Guinness slogan that there is a drop of greatness in every man. They could have really strung me along with ‘there is a hole of sweetness in every woman!’

Or a whole lot of sweetness.

‘Some men are stupid whilst some are bachelors’, you will hear some men guffaw. These are the same clique of men who have been circulating those stickers that your innocent eyes see in matatus proclaiming ‘I don’t kiss and tell… I fcuk and brag’.

Some men are Prince Charming personified and will even bake a cake with not a single string attached. To them, breakfast in bed really means food on a tray. Taste Bud Men, you could call them. On the other hand, some men are just bad men. Where else did ‘breakfast of champions’ come from? How else could non church-going men really love Morning Glory?

Some men are called Sam whilst others are quite something. Still, others are the sum of all your fears. Some are shepherds and some are cowards.

Some men circumvent the truth. Some are uncircumcised whilst others just decide to buy actual wallets. Some men become Popes whilst others can only dream of wearing the funny hat on a different head. Heck, some men even think the saying 'Two heads are better than one' is about their bodies.

We should just call a spade a spade and not a Soil Redistribution Implement. Next time you see a person start a speech by saying ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’, remind him that not all men are gentle. Next time someone uses the word ‘men-folk’, please frown and say it out loud ‘I beg your pardon?’

Next time you meet a man who insists that you sing the lyrics of ‘Cater To You’, just take it like Every Woman. And don’t forget that some men listen to Abba whilst others are not at all sado-masochists proving once again that men are brewed differently.

There are men and there are manly men. End of lesson.